Artist: Darren Hayman
Title: Christmas Advent Calendar
Format: Digital Compilation
Cat#: Fika012
Release date: 1st December 2011
Bandcamp
In December 2011, Darren Hayman and Fika Recordings joined forces to compile a Christmas compilation. We both asked friends and bands we loved, and released the tracks for free download every day through December until Christmas day.
Artist: Darren Hayman
Title: Christmas in Haworth
Format: 10”
Cat#: Fika011
Release date: 14th November 2011
Bandcamp | Spotify
'Let's go away for Christmas', we said. We never go away for Christmas and Christmas never looks like Christmas. Christmas did look like Christmas in Haworth in 2010: a blanket of snow, tinsel, all that stuff. It made me nostalgic for for cheap, flimsy cards that hung on string on my parents' wall. When I think of Christmas, I don't think of snow, I think of my Uncle pushing a shaving foam pie into my face until I choked. I think of my Mum crying over Monopoly. I think of cold fatty meats and a broken James Bond Lotus Espirit.
Christmas gets in the way, so we got out of the way of Christmas. We went to Haworth in Yorkshire. We walked out into the countryside and got lost in the snow.
Four of these songs were written and recorded in Haworth, West Yorkshire, during Christmas 2010 and later overdubbed in London and Newcastle. 'Branwell' was written and recorded in London July 2011 and 'Ruby's House' was written and recorded in Ruby's house in Lancashire in June. David Watkins played the banjo and Rebecca Evans played the bass clarinet. The band on Branwell is Jonny Helm (drums, vocals), David Tattersall (banjo, vocals), Franic Rozycki (mandolin, vocals), Robert Rotifer (guitar, vocals), Bill Botting (bass, vocals) and me (piano, vocals).
Recorded by Ian Evans and myself.
Darren Hayman - August 2011
Thanks to everyone that came to the Album Of Death launch party at the Dogstar, finely hosted by Librarians Wanted. We hope you didn't get too covered in blood, and those night bus drivers let you on, bloody and sweaty, once the dancing had stopped! You can still pick up a copy of the album on 12" blood red vinyl from here. More pictures from the night available here.
It is now less than a week to go until the official release of Moustache Of Insanity's Album Of Death! Come down to the Dogstar in Brixton for a very rare opportunity to see a full super-group five piece incarnation of Moustache Of Insanity and to pick up a copy of the LP on Fika Recordings (or the CD on Pull Yourself Together). For full details of the Librarians Wanted show, see go here.
You've still got time to go pick up the free download single from the album here, to watch the video here and to stream the album in full here.
The LP version comes on 12" blood red transparent vinyl, with hand painted inner sleeve, a tea bag of death and horror, a recipe to bake love yummies from hell and an individual photo scribbled on by the band. All for a ridiculously cheap price of £7 at the show. Come, it'll be AWESOME.
After this, we'll be taking a bit of a summer holiday, so if you want to BUY any cassettes or records from us, do so before the weekend, otherwise you'll have to wait a couple of weeks until we're back. We've only got two of Lisa Bouvier's and Lost Summer Kitten's EPs left before they sell out like the Moustache Of Insanity and Horowitz tapes have. Click on the artwork to the right to listen to all our releases and buy them.
We'll be announcing in September an EP I'm tremendously excited about from an artist I've had a soft spot for for a long time. There's a few other equally exciting things in the pipeline too for the autumn and into the new year too!
Woo! Yesterday Moustache Of Insanity released the first single from the album we're putting out in conjunction with Pull Yourself Together. Go download Lynn Lowry here and watch the gameboy tastic video for the b-side too!We're taking pre-orders for the album and if you ask us nicely at Indietracks, we'll be able to sell you a copy early, only £7 in person! The album comes with bloody tea of death and a cake recipe for yummies from hell, on blood red vinyl. Each of the 300 also has a unique blood smeared message of terror/fear/insanity on the inner sleeve and unique insert, with photo and scribblings from Bill and Nik on tour... Awesome!
Come and join us for fika at this year's Indietracks festival in Derbyshire, where we'll be hosting a tea party in the workshop tent on Sunday afternoon at 3pm. Both Horowitz and Moustache Of Insanity will be playing the festival and we might try and sneak in the odd acoustic performance from some of our other artists too! Drop by and we'll ply you with tea and cakes and music and you'll have the chance to buy some of our releases. There'll be some kind of blind tea tasting/identifying going on too, which means there'll be prizes.... Awesome!
Full schedule for the festival is available here.
Fika010, will, appropriately, be our tenth release since our launch in February this year.... and it'll be a full length 12" LP from one of our first Fika artists, Moustache Of Insanity.
Album Of Death is a monstrous amalgamation of classic horror movie themes, dancing and, er, dinner parties. If you've seen MOI recently you'll have been treated to a chaotic rendition of a few of these songs, which should put you in good stead for the screaming and jollity on the album. I adore it and can't wait to get this out. It'll be coming out in mid August, but until then, treat yourself to the awesome preview video for Dancing With Emma.
Plus, if you can't wait for this and haven't got round to buying their cassette EP on Fika (we've long since sold out), pop over to the Moustache Of Insanity website where there's still a few copies left!
11th July 2011. This is the day we cease to be a cassette only label and venture into the wonderful world of vinyl records! Our first foray with wax is coming from Nottingham's Red Shoe Diaries.
When I Find My Heart... will be a 10" EP of the songs they've been teasing audiences with for the past few months. Fists have rightly described them as "the most exciting glittery-literary indie pop band to come from the city since Tindersticks". Other reference points? Well, there's a bit of Will Oldham's alt-folkyness in there we reckon, along with something that brings to mind Stephen Merritt or Jens Lekman. More than anything, these are just 5 beautiful tracks that we're excited to be able to release. As with our other releases, expect something beautifully made and including the usual tea and cake shenanigans; there'll be just 300 of these records made.
We'll have the 5 tracks available to stream and pre-order shortly, along with details of a special launch gig in London in July.
In case you can't wait, you can download their first EP for free for a limited time.
We're just about getting everything together for our next cassette releases from Slottet, this web Amida, Petter Seander and Ed Greene. They're looking and sounding rather good! Amida have just got back from New York Popfest, where their track "Virtue Was Your Downfall" was filmed, to be played in the back of NYC's taxi cabs! Go watch it here! Tasty Fanzine have given their EP 8/10, and Music Dash describe them as "charming, poetic, partly American and as previously quoted, somewhat ahead of their time".
Swedesplease have written lovingly about the Ed Greene EP we'll be bringing to you in July, while Higher Power Moment, quite a moving blog about music and addiction, described them as "charming, gentle and witty".
You should definitely check out the live video for Petter Seander's Easy Hearts Crack - it is a beautiful, mellow version of the uptempo electro song on his Destroyer EP. Got to admit, I don't totally get Let The Cat Out's description of it as "if Outkast and The Postal Service met at a Passion Pit party", but it is a cracker.
Slottet's EP pleases Swedesplease too, affectionately saying these songs are "the closest to a Postal Service outtake you'll find". We're still trying to persuade these guys to get over to the UK to play a gig for us... while the first three will be playing a date towards the end of June - a release party! There'll no doubt be cake again, bunting and general fun times!
Remember you can pre-order all these cassettes through the website - just click on the artwork to stream and buy!
